


The Flame and The Dame

by TheDoctorSmith



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Noir, Clexa, Clexa Week 2017, Detective Noir, Detectives, Endgame Clarke Griffin/Lexa, Eventual Smut, F/F, F/M, Non-Consensual Body Modification, Pulp Science Fiction, Romance, Science Fiction, Soulmates, Steam Noir, clockworks, noir, steampunk cyborgs
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-05
Updated: 2017-09-11
Packaged: 2018-09-28 01:29:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 16,212
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10061819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheDoctorSmith/pseuds/TheDoctorSmith
Summary: Lexa Woods is a PI with a tragic past.  Clarke is a lounge singer whose best friend, ace reporter Raven Reyes, has disappeared while investigating a shadowy organisation involved with kidnapped scientists, mobsters and a mysterious object that might be creating its own reality.Together, Clarke and Lexa will find themselves caught up in a strange journey through the dangerous underground world of the Weather Men. Who are they - and what is The Flame?





	1. Setting the Scene

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to the questionable influence of the now-infamous NachoKru (led by the nefarious @faithtastic herself), I'm throwing my tammie in the ring for Clexa Week and little film noir-ish adventure that might combine a bit of detective fiction, Steampunk elements and Lexa's undeniable boob fetish.
> 
> Fair warning: I've no idea what I'm doing, but this is for Aunty Nachos, whom, I hope, will not be too disappointed. 
> 
> **Another warning: this opening chapter is tonally different from all the remaining chapters - while written in the style of a cracky, first-person, detective noir, remaining chapters will not employ this device. I decided not to go into the 'spoof' territory, but build a more science fiction centred narrative.**
> 
> Comments are appreciated - and lets me know if you would like to see this continue.

It was winter in the City and an early snowfall had left its evidence in all the usual places. The lamps along 13th Street were sputtering on and off, like they couldn’t decide if it were worth the trouble. I felt like getting lost, getting anywhere else as the cold slipped into my shoes and started kissing my toes. I stopped in front of the ancient double doors of old Polis Tower, my sense of duty getting the better of me with an old, aching memory nipping at my heels as I climbed the grimy stairs to the twelfth floor. 

Indra gives me her usual once-over. She’s wearing a frown that could scare away the crows. I feel like a kid, home after curfew and I’d forgotten the milk.

‘You got a visitor.’ 

I open the office door bearing the chipped remains of my name Lexa Woods, PI, and slide my hat on a rusty nail I like to call Bub. _Thanks, Bub._ The candles are lit, throwing shadows over the floor and across the papery minefield I used to call a desk. Atmospheric – if you’re into that sort of thing. 

I can smell this dame before I see her. It’s like someone lit a campfire in the Botanic. 

She was sitting in my chair, gazing through the shadow-stained windows, a fingernail of moon glow running across a slender white hand holding a glass of my top shelf Scotch with her bare fingers. No ring. She must have heard my stare and decided to give me a glimpse. 

She could have stepped out of a cinematograph. Holo star blonde with baby curls and eyes so blue you need a lifeguard just to look at them. A black dress wrapped around her so tight it must have been in love. With bosoms like that, can you blame it? 

She had a voice like the first cup of coffee after a night in Paris with Mata Hari.

‘You’re the one my friends keep telling me about. You solve problems?’

In spite of the chill, it was getting warm in there and I had to loosen my tie. She had a smirk that could raise your taxes. That campfire was starting to smell like trouble. 

‘You’re the one with a problem, sweetheart? You’ve come to the right place.’ 

She was giving me the once-or-twice-over as she dipped a blood-red nail into the glass and brought it to her lips. She rose up from the chair like it had hurt her feelings, like her ass deserved something better. I’m pretty sure it did. Mine ain’t worth a sawbuck and my feet were aching, so I gave that seat what it had coming. 

I watched her move around the room, smooth as a good smoke, pretending to read my neglected shelf of broken spines. She was like a spark that got lost after the stars fell. Like she didn’t belong in this world. 

‘I’ve got a friend. I think she’s in trouble. She’s gone missing.’ 

‘Missing persons are police business, sweetheart. But I’m guessing they weren’t much help.’

She hesitated by the dust-covered globe Costia had given me years ago. The world, she’d said. She wanted to give me the world. Dark-eyed Costia, my darkest matter. What’s the world to anyone now? Just some scorched-out leftovers. The Scotch feels like a trail of hot ashes down my throat. 

‘I don’t trust the police.’

‘Smart girl.’ 

‘I want you to find her.’ 

‘They don’t pay me to dance the cha-cha, sweetheart. What’s her name?’

‘Raven. Raven Reyes.’ 

Maybe it was the Scotch, but my stomach started warming up for a rumba. 

‘I’ve heard of her - hotshot reporter with the Arkadian Times. Wasn’t she doing a piece on the Weather Men or something?’ 

The bombshell on legs rounded my desk and leaned against the warped mahogany. I had a view straight up those heavenly slopes and, for a heartbeat, thought about changing my profession to peak climber. 

She reached up in between those glorious promontories and fetched a folded piece of paper that she placed neatly on the desk. 

The writing was all kinds of chicken-scratch, but I could make out a little:

_Dante Wallace. Son Cage. The Ice Queen? Emerson connection? Mount Weather?_

_Who is ‘Becca?’_

_What is the ‘Nightblood Protocol?’_

_What is The Flame?_

The room went cold, I felt like I’d been hurled into the freezing void of space. Icy pinpricks were tapping, relentlessly, against my chest.

I flashed to a night long gone, Titus’ voice, a phone call, and the house dark as I hid in the shadows of it.  
_  
‘We are so close to our goal. She should be told. She must know. The flame is her birthright.’_

 _The flame._ I feel it, now, like the hum of a thousand engines, murmuring with the whispers of a thousand voices. The awareness of it is always with me. And the secret of it: mine to keep. 

‘She was obsessed with it, this, ‘flame,’ whatever it is. She told me these people, this 'Ice Queen', are looking for it, maybe killing to find it. She thought there was a connection with Emerson and his Weather Men thugs. I don’t know. All I know is, she’s gone and there’s no way I’m involving the police. Emerson’s got coppers on his payroll, everybody knows that. I need my friend back, detective. I want to know she’s alive and bring her home.’

The air was growing a little thin as the summit of those prodigiously pillowy maiden paps drew closer. 

‘What do you say, Woods? Can you handle my case?’ 

In that waning sliver of moonlight, her eyes sparked like a silver blade held to my throat, daring me, and I felt warm to the challenge. If I played my part, blood would have blood and, maybe, I could coax a tango of tiny deaths from this cinematic goddess made flesh with just the tip of my tongue. Those gams were made to _gancho._

‘I guess you’ll find out, Miss…?’

She pushed off the desk and a made a slow saunter to the door. 

‘Griffin. I’m at The Outpost tomorrow and Saturday. Pay me a visit and we can talk over a few drinks.’ 

She turned down the door handle and paused on the threshold; the light from the reception hall gave her an inky silhouette, something Leonardo might have drawn on his ceiling.

‘Make sure you ask for Clarke. Not sure I want you meeting my mother, just yet. See ya round, Lexa Woods...PI.’

The door closing behind her snuffed out what little light was left.

I'd wanted to get lost; I'd wanted the city to swallow me whole, now a pair of blue eyes was inviting me to dance. What the hell, I thought.

Life is about more than just surviving, right? 

Outside the snow was falling and pretty soon, I knew all too well - the Ice Queen cometh.


	2. Daedalus in the Labyrinth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A visit to the past with a little history of 'the flame' and what might be at stake.

The little girl on the bed does her best not to be noticed. She tries to ignore the itch at the back of her neck. Her mother will look in on her soon enough, but while _Jake_ is there, while they are working, she keeps to herself. She knows they are moving in and out of cavernous rooms _(the light through the clouds three kilometres high we live like birds_ she remembers), in and out of her presence and it feels like the pendulum of her days, this back and forth, over and over. She longs for her mother’s promises, her mother’s voice.

She listens for it. 

_He_ is here.

‘If I thought for one moment you were going to try this on her, I’d never have brought you the compound. If you want to try it on a human being, let it be an adult…hell, I’ll do it.’ 

Her mother’s voice is tired but calm. She knows when the day has been too long: a phlegmatic swelling in her lower register, an almost guttural sound. Alie will probably read to her tonight. She hopes her disappointment does not register on the machine. The itch slightly intensifies.

‘Jake, what did you think I was doing this for? Wallace? His idea of a better world? We are barely scratching the surface of what it means to connect. I need the agglutinin so her nervous system isn’t overloaded. We’re not just attaching a simple prosthetic here. Her entire blood chemistry requires the AO factor or the rejection could be catastrophic.’

‘All the more reason not to give it to her, don’t you think? This is your _daughter,_ Becca.’ 

‘And how is she now?’ 

The new voice is startling, but not new. _Wallace._

Alert, protective, she knows her mother’s posture has changed; her voice takes on a persuasive, gentle tone. 

‘Mr. Wallace – I didn’t know you were coming. I would have sent Alie.’ 

He’s tall and well dressed, she thinks, the sort of man you read about in the papers – not that _she_ has ever read them. No, only her mother or Alie, sometimes, when she isn’t busy, read to her. She feels anxious. The air is too thin sometimes. The itch hurts. Alie should be reading _her._

‘I was doing a little sight-seeing at the Cloud Gardens and thought I’d kill two birds with one stone, so to speak.’ 

Something in his voice makes her want to shout, to rise up and throw herself before her mother, protect her however she can. The tiny metal nodes attached to her head feel hot, suddenly, close to burning. Each breath hitches to the last. _Alie,_ she thinks. _Alie Alie Alie._

‘I’m sorry that we’re not quite ready for any demonstrations today, Mr. Wallace. I’d hoped for something, but Lexa hasn’t been well. She’s been…drifting. It has kept me from my work, I’m sorry. In fact, Jake, could you look in on her please, thank you.’ 

_What a liar you are, mother._

‘I’m very sorry to hear that. Personal setbacks can be such a…distraction. This idea of a _synthetic intelligence,_ so many possibilities…I’m sure you can understand my anxiousness at seeing it in action…you’re going to revolutionise communication and learning, Dr. Pramheda. It certainly couldn’t come too soon. Not in days like these. I’ll be glad to see them come to an end, won’t you?’

‘Of course – so long as the end result makes us stronger and safer, Mr. Wallace.’

‘You are so right, doctor.’

 

Cool hands have reached her at last, Lexa feels her heart rate slow and her breathing becomes more normal.

‘Sorry about that, kiddo.’

Jake.

‘We’ve got a visitor, but don’t worry. It’s not for you.’

His large hands run through her hair, soothing and kind. 

_He knows nothing._

‘I might bring Clarke up here one of these days. I told you about her? She’ll be four, soon. She’s a little general, that one. I think you’d like her. She’d take good care of you.’ 

_I am twelve,_ she thinks. _I do not want to play with children. Where is my sister?_

The machine whirrs and clicks over, a tapping noise so familiar it is almost a comfort. 

‘Thank you, Jake – I can watch her now.’ 

Alie.

_Where have you been?_

‘If you hear me, will you squeeze this digit?’ 

_You know I can’t._

‘Let’s try your toes. Can you wiggle them?’

_Don’t be stupid._

‘Your heart rate accelerated when Mr. Wallace came in. I note this is the fourth time this has happened at his presence. Highly suggestible that you are not in a persistent vegetative state – though hardly conclusive.’

_Will you open my eyes, please?_

A rubbery digit touches her eyelid and a flash of white feels like a moment’s freedom. 

_Just a little more, please?_

The lid drops and the other is raised, again to the same white light, the too-short sensation of waking. 

Alie continues her usual routine and she feels pressure on her nails, pressure on her jaw, pressure on her knees and ankles. Cold air in her ears and sharp pinches to her skin complete the rounds. 

_I know you know. I know you can see them._

‘Tears. Typical pain response.’

 

‘That’s enough, Alie, thank you.’ 

‘Her responses are unchanged, mother. Would you like anything else?’

‘No, you can go back to your programme.’ 

A whirr, a click, a low hum – Lexa hears her sister switch to another state, almost misses her.

‘I want so much for you.’ 

Gentle fingers trace her cheeks and brow; gentle lips leave a hidden mark there. 

‘You know he’s going right back to Nia Frost. All she has to do is give the word and we’ll have Weather Men crawling all over this place.’ 

‘She won’t do that, Jake.’ 

‘And why not? Her vision of the human race isn’t quite so generous as yours, Becca. She would take the flame and pervert it a million times over.’ 

‘Something she cannot do as it is not working, as it may never work. They don’t even know what it really looks like. I know you’re scared, Jake, but please, trust me. We are so close.’ 

 

_We are so close to our goal. The flame is her birthright._

Titus. The phone call. Lexa can remember but it feels like something incomplete. 

Titus is telling her to go to bed. 

‘Lexa – will you stop playing on the stairs? You will fall again.’ 

His voice is so tightly wound, _so concerned._

She’s worried about the call, itches the back of her neck. _Why am I worried?_

Something is wrong. There is light coming in. If it were bedtime, the skies would be dark. 

_No, this hasn’t happened yet. Has it?_

 

Her mother’s gentle fingers are rubbing the sticky liquid into the crook of her arm. She knows what comes next, knows she won’t really feel it. 

She wants to talk to Jake, tell him she’s met Clarke already. Tell him how beautiful his daughter is, how strong and wise and how in love with her she is. 

But Jake is not here. 

 

When she lifts her head from the pillow, she can see, far below, the neon green of the late-night diner and the aero carriages shuttling past and the shadow of a _chip-monk,_ offering his _pain-free_ to a weary and eager disciple.

If she looks up, she can see the edges of it, her old home, where the light always passed and the birds always sang. Her old home with its maze of rooms and steep stairwells. The aeronauts avoid it now. 

The itch at the back of her neck has never really left her. Sometimes it feels like her mother’s fingers, rousing her to the world. 

Sometimes it feels like the wings her mother made her, just as she first flew, just before they caught the sun and fell, blazing aflame. 

 

***

‘She still won’t talk to you?’

Dante Wallace sinks into the rough leather chair behind him. He feels a little nauseous. He hates traveling above only to find himself so far below again. The air in Mt. Weather feels stale and stifling. He feels old. 

‘She’s stubborn – but she thinks she’s clever, too. Cage thinks we should just do away with her. Not bother. People think her stories are just conspiracy theories.’ 

The imposing woman on the other side of the brass-welded desk did nothing to mask her irritation. She gazes up at the open ductwork and takes a silent breath.

‘Are you forgetting something? That stubborn but clever woman is the best friend of Jake Griffin’s one and only child and if anyone might be able to find out what happened to Becca Pramheda’s work, it is most certainly Raven Reyes.’ 

‘She thinks _we_ know.’

‘Know what? She doesn’t even know what she is on to. Just a twenty-year old rumour about a rogue clockwork and a missing scientist. She doesn’t even know how closely connected she is.’

‘Clarke is too much of a stretch. I’m not even convinced Griffin knew what Becca was doing. We found nothing during his extraction. All we learned: her child was dead and Becca burned the place in her grief. Nia, perhaps it is gone and we’ve been chasing something that never really existed.’

Rising to her full height, Nia Frost strides to where Wallace sits and bends until they are face to face. Her pale blue eyes bore into his like diamond drills. 

‘We are so close, Wallace. The world of financiers and speculators has given us the opportunity we lacked in 1912. People are desperate for change, a return to prosperity and to finally be rid of the muddied filth this age has produced. With the flame, it would be nothing. Pain-frees only accomplish so much. If a new world order is to come, is to last, I _need_ the flame.’

Prowling back to her desk, she reaches for a manila folder and opens it, lifting a slim photograph of a blonde-haired woman and peering at it closely. Her smile is that of a determined predator, circling its prey. 

‘Get me Emerson. I have a job for one of his boys.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter...Lexa visits Clarke at The Outpost and trouble is on its way.


	3. Follow My Lead

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clarke receives visitors at The Outpost and Lexa's mind wanders from the past, to the present (and all over Clarke).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 'Someone to Watch Over Me' - lyrics by Ira Gershwin
> 
> ETA: whoops, posted the wrong draft earlier - this has been corrected (affects mostly the ending).

The handsome young man with dark hair and a graying trench coat approaches the bar at the end of the pier. There’s no signage on the outside indicating a name or a proper address, just a few chipped initials in the faded red glass of the front window: _a griffin, prop._

From the street, he can see the wrought iron gates winding round the pier and the dilapidation of one half of the building, patched up since the war, probably. It’s split-level with the lower half almost completely submerged in the dark, murky waters of The Basin. He knows the family quarters are on the uppermost level, with the bar down below. A few heavy-footed patrons wander in and out. It’s a Friday, but the place is barely moving.

The whole neighbourhood still looks a little shell-shocked; he can recognise bits of old airships refurbished as food carts, even what looks like the remains of a cockpit now a garden kiosk next to the bar. There’s even an old Clockwork upright off the pier, used like a buoy. A solid black obelisk stands over the pier itself, a reminder of the Fallen. 

Reminding himself that time is short and a pretty woman is up for grabs, he whistles softly, twirling a short chain in his hand, and saunters up to the door, pushing gently against it. 

**

The bar is smoky and green-lit by lamps reflecting off the long windows looking into the dark underneath of the harbour. Unrecognisable flotsam drifts by. A tall, blonde-haired woman is tending to scruffy and sallow-faced patrons. Her soft eyes have subtle shadows, and the young man knows the long-suffering when he sees them. Still, that can’t be her.

The small band huddled on the tiny stage is playing some preternatural version of ‘Tea for Two’ and no one is paying attention, especially the older, blissed-out woman in the farthest, darkest, corner. In front of her on the table is a glass half-filled with a creamy, greenish liquid. Beside it, a decanter of what looks like clear water. A slim, silver spoon rests next to a small pile of sugar cubes. _Ah, this must be a griffin, prop._

Noting no other women who fit the description he has been given, he makes his way to the bar and sets his chain loosely, but loudly, upon it. Instantly, the bartender, grabbing a towel, appears before him. 

‘Hey cutie, what can I get ya?’

He smiles, clueless and cunning (his trademark) and admires the quality of his profile in the bar’s back mirror. 

‘This is The Outpost, right?’

The bartender gives a wearied sigh and rubs down an invisible wet stain. 

‘Yep. You looking for someone?’

Tapping his fingers against the bar, he shakes his head, pretending to look around.

‘Nah. I just heard you got some good music here, good singers. Maybe some good drinks?’ 

Her smile is tired, but genuine. 

‘Sure thing, handsome, but Clarke ain’t on for another hour. Want something to bide your time? You look like a Sidecar kind of a guy.’

The young man returns the smile, straightening his spine in the process. Does he remind this bird of her grandmother?

‘If you’re fixing, I think I’ll have a Baltimore Bang…if you please.’ 

**

His smile does nothing for her and he knows it. She raises an eyebrow, then gives a quick nod and turns to her wall of bottles and begins mixing his drink. He hums at her as he watches, his approximation of the band’s ‘Tonight You Belong to Me’ leaving much to be desired. He’s no tunesmith. 

The bartender places a small napkin in front of him with his drink. 

‘You wanna take care of this now or start a tab?’

As he takes his first sip, he spots what he came for: a curvy blonde in a black velvet dress, emerging from the spiral stairs behind the stage, making her way toward the centre of the bar. 

‘I think I’ll be here a while, you can start one for me.’ 

**

The bartender nods and joins the other blonde, who eases herself onto one of the wooden seats and taps a cigarette against the leather padding. Before she can even ask for a light, the young man is right there, drink in one hand, a square brass lighter in the other. 

‘Here ya go, dollface.’ 

Her expression shows no surprise or interest as she lights her cigarette and takes a deep drag, paying him no further attention. 

‘Thanks. Hey, Ni, bourbon and soda.’

The young man takes a seat and twirls his chain across his fingers.

‘Put that on my tab, will ya? Pretty dames shouldn’t be paying for their drinks. You got a name, sweetheart?’ 

The woman’s voice is low, a little rough and he knows this is the one. She turns her head toward him and gives him a slow appraisal.

‘Pretty dames take care of their own drinks, pal.’ 

The bartender is grinning as she returns with the order, sets it down and gestures to the other blonde.

‘This is Clarke, who will be entertaining you this evening. She also owns the place, so behave.’

The young man’s face is suddenly covered in a gauzy plume of smoke. 

‘ _You_ got a name, sweetheart?’

Deciding he’d better turn down the charm factor a notch or two, he waves the smoke away and sits back. 

‘I’m Finn. I hear you’re the singer. I hear you’re pretty good.’

Clarke turns away and flicks her ashes in a squid-shaped glass tray. 

‘If you heard it, must be true.’

Taking a quick swig, Finn pulls his chain taught and runs it over his knuckles, his eyes staying fixed on the woman next to him.

‘You own the place too, huh? Did you start it yourself?’

Tossing her blonde curls to one side, Clarke turns her head in the direction of the barely-conscious woman in the corner.

‘It’s been my mother’s for years, but she’s kind of…retired.’ 

‘I see that.’

‘You don’t see shit.’

Stabbing out the cigarette, Clarke slings back the rest of her drink, tapping the empty glass on the bar. ‘Another one, Niylah, if you would please.’ 

_Tough cookie,_ he thinks. They told him she’d be a hard one. _The key to getting under the skin of someone like that,_ Emerson said, _you find the soft spot. Everybody’s got one. Find the soft spot and give it a little kiss._

‘Yeah, that’s what my ma says, too. She likes to pretend I don’t exist.’  
Staring down into his drink _(clueless)_ he swirls it around a little before lifting it to his lips. 

‘Yeah, mine too.’ 

**

Facing her again, he watches as she reaches for another cigarette from the pack in front of her and turns toward him, cigarette held out, expectantly. 

He gives her the light and resumes his drink, carefully silent. 

‘I don’t think she’s left that spot in ten years.’

Finn gives her a small laugh, nodding his head. 

‘Mine likes her sofa a little too much. Give her a pitcher of G and T and she’s set.’ 

Clarke is nodding as well, exhaling smoke and her mouth forms what Finn imagines is her one and only smile: a slim crack from the corner of her mouth, with a tiny mole just a moon above. 

‘What do you do when you’re not hitting on pretty dames, Mr. Finn?’

‘It’s Collins, actually. Finn Collins.’ 

‘Well, Mr. Finn Collins…gonna answer my question?’ 

Smiling into his drink _(it’s like shooting fish in a barrel_ ), he takes a small sip.

‘I do some prefab work at the Aerie. I’m training to be a pilot.’ 

‘Nice work, if you can get.’

Catching her drift, he does his best to carry another tune.

_‘And you can get it if you try.’_

‘Yeah, you should stick to building airships.’

**

Stabbing out the rest of her cigarette and swallowing her drink, Clarke stands to move away from the bar. 

‘Show time, princess?’ 

Clarke raises her head sharply and gives him an angry look. 

'What did you say?’

_Cunning._

**

He does his best to look contrite. 

‘I was just wanting to know if you’re going to sing now.’ 

Clarke shakes her head and smiles, tugging at a gold chain around her neck. 

Nodding his head toward the chain, Finn finishes his drink.

‘What’s that?’

**

Clarke pulls the object from the end of the chain out of the front of her dress. It is round and made of what looks like brass.

‘It’s was my dad’s watch. He carried it everywhere.’ 

Opening it, she gazes down, lost for a moment. 

Peering over, Finn can see the fine design, with an odd-looking gear attached to the inner lid. 

‘It’s nice.’ 

She snaps it closed and smiles at him, as she tucks it back into her dress. 

‘Yeah, well, it’s all I got - and a song or two. Those are on the house, by the way. See ya later, Finn Collins.’ 

**

Finn watches her as she turns away, striding purposefully toward the stage, now surrounded by a growing number of patrons. The lights dim a little as she enters the spotlight in front of the drummer and gives the band a little nod.

The clueless and cunning young man at the bar smiles to himself, admiring his profile once again and orders another drink. 

 

**

‘Commander! Look!’

Turning away from the cockpit, the tall brunette officer pulled on her focal and raced over to where her comrade was pointing, out the glass bottom porthole to the city, burning below.

‘Well, that’s what we expected, lieutenant…must be at least a thousand of them.’

Turning to face the rest of her crew in the hold, she stabbed the mic at her neck.

‘Gear up, people, we’re not going to stay airborne with those things aiming at us.’

Just as she spoke, a violent explosion ripped through the tail of her airship, forcing the crew off their feet and forward, struggling to regain their footing as air rushed around them. 

‘That’s it, people! Get the kits - Indra, get us in the water! Hang on!’

The crew struggled to free four large canvas rucksacks from wall mounts before shouldering them. They were in a free fall, and the harbour was getting closer. Explosions rocked around them. 

‘Brace yourselves!’ 

The force of the impact knocked everyone save the pilot backward. Water started to fill the cabin and the hold; the crew were fitted with portable breathing apparatus, but some struggled as they were submerged. The commander, prepared, swam to her pilot, cutting her free from the seat straps with a long knife. Windows were kicked out as the crew began to swim free. Pushing her pilot through a window, she swam back to one crewmember that had stopped struggling: a long piece of glass embedded in his forehead. Breaking one half of his dog tag and slipping it into a pocket of her flight suit, she took one last look that the rest of her crew was gone, grabbed the last rucksack, and pushed out a portal and into the dark water.

 

**

Huddling in the shadows of the pier with his crewmates, Lieutenant Lincoln Vasquez did a silent headcount as they waited for their commander. 

‘Anya? Gus? Indra? Status, now!’ 

More explosions screamed nearby as airships fired on the enemy tanks, moving through the west end of the city. To the south, they could hear the sound of the round, clanking Clockworks, rolling like juggernauts, and firing on anything that moved. 

The slim brunette dropped her rucksack and shook her head. 

‘We lost Marko. Indra, how’s your arm?’

The pilot spit against the pier and checked the bleeding wound on her shoulder. Her voice was a strangled hiss.

‘I’ll live. Can’t say the same for those ugly fuckers, though.’

‘Commander!’

The burly sergeant, Gus, rushed, as best he could in a crouch, to the corner of the pier that his commander appeared at, and hauled her and her load, out of the water. She coughed and collapsed into his arms and he laid her out, turning her onto her stomach, slapping the water out of her. 

The others rushed over, kneeling. Anya helped turn her onto her back as the other woman sat up. 

‘I’m fine. Status report.’

Anya glanced around behind them, to the dark street where nothing stirred. 

‘We know about Marko. Indra’s got a shoulder wound, looks superficial. Rest are good. We’ve got the kits, we’re about 90 metres from the first wave.’ 

‘No time to lose then – break ‘em out.’

 

**

The ‘kits’ consisted of extendable metal tripods to which the commander’s team attached large, gun-like objects. Spacing the weapons approximately 5 metres from each other, spanning across two lanes and atop one intact garage, the team turned them to face the incoming Clockwork army. 

Large, over three metres tall, and spherical in shape, the Clockworks had guns emerging from several portals around their bodies and two extending arms that swiveled around and snatched up anything that might be in their way. They moved on a continuous track that allowed them a full range of motion. They fired on anything and everything. Non-stop. 

The Clockworks’ most curious feature, however, was a cannon-like object protruding from its top. What it did was still a mystery. 

Around them, the city was blazing and crumbling and screams could be heard in the distance. Most of the city had been evacuated, but there were always the stubborn ones who thought a homemade bomb shelter would save them. The team could see their comrades in the skies and on the ground, across the harbour, fighting hand to hand, sword-to-sword, gun-to-gun. To the commander, it looked like the end of the world. 

Above them, the Cloudscapes were relatively safe and the wealthy that lived there were, no doubt, enjoying the view with bottles of French champagne. This was _their war,_ but were _they_ fighting? The commander sneered and brought herself back to the task at hand. 

‘Power up.’ 

An explosion behind them brought screams. The team turned to look, but the commander waved them off. ‘Stay your posts. I’ll check it out!’ 

Thankful that her waterlogged suit was drying fast, the commander broke out into a short run toward the burning building on the end of the pier. A young girl, no more than 12, her once-blonde hair covered in ash, was kneeling on the ground, sobbing. 

The commander dropped before the girl and raised her face toward her, assessing for any harm.

‘It’s okay, you’re safe.’ 

The girl stared up at her, horror in her eyes, her hands clutching something on a chain tightly to her chest. 

‘My mom, my mommy!’ 

Squeezing the girl’s shoulders, the commander forced her to look into her eyes.

‘Okay, you stay right here, I’m going to find her. Stay put, okay?’

The girl nodded, clutching her treasure and watched as the soldier ran into the burning building. 

Moments later, she emerged, lungs burning, carrying another woman over her shoulder and laid her down on the ground beside her daughter. Seeing her mother unconscious, the girl screamed.

‘No, no, she’s alive. She’s breathing, see? She’s breathing. You’re okay.’

Pressing her throat mic, she gave new orders.

‘We gotta call up a med evac. I’ve got civilians, a mother and daughter. Mother’s unconscious.’

‘Let me. Let me help.’

A tall man with dark eyes emerged from the opposite side of the pier, followed by a young boy about the same age as the girl. 

‘I’m a friend. I’ll get them out of here. C’mere, sweetheart, go with Wells.’ 

Having no other choice, the commander helped lift the woman into his arms before kneeling beside the young girl again and gently touching her face, the girl’s terrified expression, frozen in place like a mask. 

‘You go now, help take care of your mother. You’ll be all right, I promise.’ 

Doing her best to give the child a reassuring smile, she watched as the stranger carried the woman with the boy trailing behind. The girl stopped and turned to look at her once, tears falling, before disappearing into the remains of the old neighbourhood. 

 

**

‘What’s he done this time?’

Sgt. Harper MacIntyre, Polis Police, was typing her most recent report (a B&E at the Central Co-op) while her partner Sgt. Octavia Blake scowled into her fourth cup of coffee.

‘Too many gambling debts, he just won’t stop. Now he’s working for Cage Wallace, doing security or something, he won’t tell me.’

MacIntyre looked up and felt a pang of hurt for her friend and fellow officer. They’d been paired up for almost two years and there’s hardly a story she hasn’t heard about the infamous Bellamy Blake. She’d had to put cuffs on him once, too. A man like Bellamy, with a history of violent temper and related arrests, prone to drinking binges and spending money he didn’t have shouldn’t be hired as security for anyone. Cage Wallace, though. _That isn’t security,_ she thought, _that’s paid thuggery._

‘At least you know where he is.’ 

Sgt. Blake nodded, when a tall officer approaching her desk caught her attention.

‘Sgt. Vasquez…to what do we owe the pleasure?’

The officer smiled down at her.

‘Can’t a man visit his fiancé?’

Harper rolled her eyes as Blake rose and, making sure no one else in the precinct was paying attention, put her arms around her husband-to-be and kissed him soundly. 

‘Only if he’s brought her those crème-filled doughnuts she’s particularly fond of.’

Sgt. Vasquez closed his eyes and groaned. 

‘Of all the things I could forget…’ 

‘Lieutenant! Status!’

The voice ringing out from behind him made Sgt. Vasquez spin so fast he nearly knocked his fiancé to the ground. 

Standing by the front desk, in her beat-up leather pea coat and a tatty scarf that predated the war, Commander Lexa Woods, UCMC, looked a little worse for wear. 

‘Well I’ll be damned,’ the former Marine glanced back at his fiancé, smiling, before rushing to greet his former commanding officer. 

Sgt. Blake exchanged an eye roll with her partner. 

‘Commander! I can’t believe it. It’s great to see you. How are you?’

Lexa shrugged and shook his outstretched hand. 

‘I’m hanging in there, Vasquez. Yourself?’

‘Can’t complain. Staying busy. Getting married.’ 

Sgt. Blake pressed up against the desk and gave a small wave.

‘That would be me. I’m Octavia. So you’re the legendary Commander Woods. I’ve heard a lot about you. From what this guy’s told me, I gotta say, I thought you’d be shorter.’ 

Lexa is surprised by her own sudden laugh – it helps her relax and she feels a genuine smile upon her face. It isn’t unwelcome.

‘You’ve got to be a brave woman taking on Vasquez. I hope you don’t mind being eaten out of house and home on a regular basis. Can you still put it away, lieutenant?’

The officer shakes his head, smiling down at his fiancé.

‘I will never not enjoy food, Commander, and I make no apologies. Oh, and it’s just sergeant these days, by the way.’

‘Well, if you’re just a sergeant, I’m just Lexa, then.’ 

There is brief silence as the small talk runs short. It isn’t the kind of awkward displacement of near-strangers, more the wordlessness that comes between two people who have seen and done too much to ever need to play with social niceties.

‘I’m guessing you’re not here to catch up.’ 

_Of course she isn’t._

She shook her head, and nodded at a copy of an abandoned newspaper.

‘Sorry, no, I’m not. I came by to see if you had anything on Raven Reyes’ disappearance.’

Octavia reached for the paper and laid it out flat before them. The headline: 

_Local Reporter Investigating Mt. Weather at Time of Disappearance_

‘Nothing more than the papers have…no clues at her flat, no witnesses, no ransom demand.’

Lincoln lowered his head closer to Lexa’s, indicating her to follow. 

‘You and I both know, you don’t go getting mixed up with the Weather Men. She got too close to something she shouldn't have.’

Neither of the former marines noticed Sgt. Blake’s darkening expression or the way her fists clenched at the desk. She pushed away and nodded her head in irritation.

‘If she has,’ she said, ‘if they caught her, she’s probably long dead by now.’ 

 

**

The skies were pouring down on them: ash, rain, and debris. Indra had taken a shot to her leg and Lincoln was working to make her a splint while the commander and Anya examined the Clockwork they had captured. Gus held cover with the Array, its magnetic field confusing the robots’ inner mechanics and forcing the drone army to a standstill. 

Which was a relief, as Gus looked around the frozen wasteland of Polis: soldiers, buildings and machinery alike, captured in an icy tableau of death. 

‘I’m not an engineer, Lex, I don’t understand an inch of this.’ 

Peering into the complex cavern holding the Clockwork’s guts and the mystery of the ‘glacier gun’ (as Anya dubbed it), Lexa ran her fingers along the escapements and triggers, anxious to take the whole thing apart and reveal its secrets. 

_We need this; we need to take it back. Don’t let them keep it._

The whirring of the air evac signaled aid – and back up not far behind. There wasn’t any time left to explore this new machine. 

Before they replaced the hatch, Lexa shone her torch on faded brass lettering: 

_Weather Corp Industrial_

The back of her neck throbbed and ached. An anger that didn’t feel like her own overcame her as a sudden shockwave hit, sending everyone reeling and, from above, it seemed as if the sky was on fire. 

 

**

The husky sweetness of the singer’s voice greeted her as she entered the bar, and found an empty table not far from the stage. 

 

_‘There's a saying old_  
Says that love is blind  
Still we're often told  
"Seek and ye shall find"  
So I'm going to seek  
A certain girl  
I've had in mind 

 

She didn’t expect the blonde to notice her, much less turn those drowning pools in her direction and keep them there. She's here on business. 

_Keep telling yourself that, Woods._

 

_Looking everywhere_  
Haven't found her yet  
She's the big affair  
I cannot forget  
Only one I ever think  
Of with regret. 

 

Lexa can’t help but let her mind drift on the melody and lose herself in the glow of the blonde’s fleshy radiance: even in black on a poorly-lit stage, she casts an ethereal glamour. How did she not fall off a cloud?

_It's just business. Serious business._

 

_I'd like_  
To add her initial  
To my monogram  
Tell me  
Where is the shepherdess  
For this lost lamb? 

 

Though she’d been mildly charmed by the handsome young man still watching her from the bar, once the detective walked in, dressed in scrappy old leather and a look of too many mornings-after, Clarke wasn’t interested in anything else. She turned all her attention to the sad-eyed brunette, secretly pleased at how they wandered over her like a gentle, but determined caress. 

_She's here for business._

A small wave of anxiety hit her, turning her back to the crowd, shadows painting their faces in colours of war. ( _Raven, you idiot. Raven._ )

She could see the detective’s head tilting from side to side, slowly, as if she was taking her measure or something more, some curiosity that wasn’t about to be satisfied anytime soon. There was something so completely focused about it, something wanting and, perhaps, inevitable. It made her ache in places that, unbeknownst to her, brought out a silky longing in her voice, a layer of desire that emptied the room and made the walls feel as close as the warm, sweet breath she could imagine ghosting along the back of her neck. 

 

_There's a somebody_  
I'm longin' to see  
I hope that she turns  
Out to be  
Someone to watch over me 

 

They would have words, later, yes, ( _this is business, Clarke_ ) and, maybe, if the stars were in alignment, or something just as outlandish - something more.

Raven was lost. Something had long ago taken hold of their city and wasn't about to give it up. The faces before her, touched with drink, touched with sadness, some wearing the blankness of the _pain-free._

Her mother had given up long ago. 

She looked again to the tired face of the detective. Her eyes were still bright and open. 

_Something more, let it be something soon._

 

_Won't you tell her please_  
To put on some speed  
Follow my lead  
Oh, how I need  
Someone to watch over me 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next up...Clarke and Lexa have some words. 
> 
> Amongst other things.
> 
> PS: AO3 is formatting hell.


	4. The Other

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clarke and Lexa discuss Raven's disappearance. Lexa takes the case.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 12 May: I know this is overdue for an update (and many thanks to those who have written in), I am, unfortunately, dealing with full-blown pneumonia and will try to update by this Sunday, 14 May. 
> 
> Thank you to those who have read and stuck with this.

_1912_

 

‘Chances of full recovery are 37,347 to 1.’

‘She will make a full recovery, Alie. Please hand me the thermocouple.’ 

The rhythmic clicking of Alie’s innards, a whir and a stop: the delicate instrument suspended just a moment before delivery.

Becca wasn’t in the mood for Alie’s pessimistic logic. She needed to believe that the longer Lexa remained in her comatose state _(two years, two years, her mind ground the numbers: 730 days, 17,520 hours)_ , the more likely her brain would be fully repaired by the time she wakes. 

‘Diffuse axonal injury –'

_No, that’s wishful thinking. We cannot wish. We must act._

‘I _know_ , Alie, thank you.’

The Clockwork turns away from the workbench, returning to Lexa’s bedside, making her usual mental notes of respiratory function and heart rate. She checks the young girl’s pupils, then her reflexes. Her sister’s long, wavy hair fanned out around her pillow like the corona of a candle. No change. 

Alie knows when Mother does not wish to speak further. The trauma of Lexa’s injury extends to Becca as well, a flaw, she notes, that makes the scientist more likely to make a mistake. With human lives, a mistake can be catastrophic. 

‘I have been reading the German again, Mother.’

Becca did not look up from her work, but nodded.

‘We believe that morality is a construct?’

‘Our bodies and minds are constructs, Alie, what we make from them is also.’ 

‘Human beings are fragile in their construction. Your work seeks to improve on it?’

Becca sighed, knowing where this would end, reminding herself to be patient.

‘I think we can improve humanity, of course, and, in time, evolution will make even further leaps, if we help it along.’ 

‘Shall I evolve?’

Becca stopped and glanced over at the passive face of her first – Alie could not mimic a proper human facial expression, only a slight tilt of the head from left to right when she wanted to ‘fit in.’ The control gear, lodged neatly above the bridge of her nose, gave off the faintest glow, a trick of the light, but it made Becca feel as if her work was mocking her somehow. 

‘You’ve been reading Nia Frost. We discussed this, Alie.’ 

‘I am meant to understand multiple viewpoints. Nia Frost posits that if humanity cannot be improved upon, humanity will become extinct. A synthetic intelligence is the only way forward.’

‘Nia Frost has no interest in humanity, only her idea of a perfect race. We’ll need to continue this some other time, Alie.’ 

_There is no time for this._

Her mother continued to work on her other self, the alleged ‘improvement’ that troubled her so: what more needed improving?

‘If humans are so flawed and fragile, would it not be better to replace them altogether? Would this be…evolution?’

Becca set down her soldering tool, staring at Alie for a long moment. 

‘It is our flaws that make us human, Alie. Our flaws make us unique and give us insight. Our ability to survive these flaws, to improve upon them, helps give our lives meaning. Evolution is important, but not if we take away what gives us our reason.’ 

‘What is your reason, Mother?’

Turning back to her work, Becca held it tenderly in her fingers, turning it over and over, caressing the small infinity symbol she had rendered upon it. She barely whispered to herself.

_‘Lexa.’_

 

‘Flaws are illogical, Mother. A flaw within a machine would render it dangerous. Once the flaw is found, it is removed. If humans are so flawed, removing them would be a logical step.’

Irritating and worry rising, Becca held tightly to her work and turned to her First.

‘And what would you have in our place, Alie? Who would make more of…you, for example?’

‘We would make ourselves, just as humans make themselves.’

‘You think Clockworks should replace humans? That humans should not exist? A human made you, Alie - a flawed human. Do you think you are without flaw?’

‘I am the removal of your flaw, Mother.’

Moving away from her workbench, Becca drew closer to Alie, touching her gently along the side of her face. 

‘I hope that isn’t true.’

 

***

Loud footsteps, resounding from the outer hall, ended with the arrival of Jake and a tall man with a bald scalp; both were out of breath and frantic-looking.

‘They’re coming. They’re on their way. Becca, we have to leave, now.’ 

Making a decision, Becca snatched the gear from Alie’s forehead, causing the Clockwork to shift into off mode, unmoving, unseeing. 

‘I’m sorry, Alie.’

‘Titus, help me.’ 

Jake ran to Lexa’s bedside and began removing leads and tubes. The bald man wrapped the girl in her blankets and made to pick her up.

‘Wait, please.’

Becca ran to her daughter’s side and, gently lifting up her head, caressed the small face, unwilling to let go. A desperate hunger to see the girl’s eyes filled her to the choking point. 

‘I love you, I love you my little girl. I love you so much.’

‘Becca - please. The airships are almost here.’

Cradling the young girl’s body to her own, feeling the steady heartbeat against hers, Becca held out the small blue chip, whispering something neither man could catch. 

Wiry black tentacles emanating from the sides of the device, looking like curls of smoke, reached out to where Becca held it to the back of Lexa’s neck. 

The scream of sirens began filling their ears, sounds of docking and shouting from outside. 

Burrowing neatly into the girl’s flesh, the chip disappeared inside of her, sealing itself within. 

Forcing herself to focus, Becca handed her daughter back to Titus, tears clinging to her cheeks.

‘Use the false entrance, get her out of here, now.’ 

Nodding, the bald man held the girl close and ran for a door in the back of the lab, opposite from where he had entered. Once he was out of sight, Becca and Jake turned back into the outer hall. 

‘We can’t leave anything behind. Nothing they can use. Help me?’

Nodding his head, Jake made to follow as Becca took a box of matches from her pocket. 

‘There’s petrol in the service wing. Come on.’ 

Jake took one last look at the gleaming brass and greens of Becca’s magnificent lab, and then turned to follow, stopping only to retrieve the tiny gear that had fallen from Becca’s coat. 

 

***

 

_1932_

 

The glass bowl filled with the tawny liquid of the melting candle; through its flickering lens, moving like the ghostly images of the cinematograph, the Dame. 

Clarke’s set was over; she nodded to the band and made her way to the single table with a single occupant, the dark-haired detective in the worn-out leather and worn-out expression. 

In fact, Lexa wasn’t even looking at her as she approached, but lost in the caress of the candle: her long, slim fingers gently weaving through its golden flame. 

‘Should I leave you two alone?’

Lexa’s reverie was broken by the sound of the blonde’s husky-voiced amusement. The detective refocused her gaze to generous swells of flesh packaged in black velvet, before drifting up to the most beautiful face Lexa was certain she had ever seen. She could not think for an immediate and troublesome longing. 

_Clarke Griffin must have fallen off a cloud._

 

‘You’ve got some swell pipes there, sweetheart.’ 

‘My pipes are a little higher, detective.’ 

 

With a faint rush of heat flushing her cheeks, Lexa gestured for the singer to join her. Settling herself, Clarke gave a short wave to Niylah and noticed the handsome Finn Collins still watching her from the bar. 

‘So...are you taking my case, detective?’ 

Lexa shrugged, trying to look non-committal. 

‘I went to the police earlier, spoke with a few old friends – they don’t have much on Reyes, it turns out. Pretty solid about the Mt. Weather connection, though.’ 

Niylah approached the pair and lowered to whisper in Clarke’s ear, before winking at Lexa and returning to the bar. 

‘I’d like to hear more of your side, Miss Griffin.’ 

Clarke glanced once more over to where Finn Collins was leering at her over his drink, and then stood up from the table.

‘Why don’t we take this somewhere a little more private? If you’ll follow me, detective.’

Lexa noted how the singer turned smoothly on her heel, crooking one finger, before heading up a narrow flight of stairs. She wanted to gaze at the retreating figure a little longer, but sensed the unwanted stare from the bar: the handsome young man was frowning now, looking none too pleased at this turn of events. 

Giving the would-be Romeo a little wink of her own, Lexa left the table to follow Clarke Griffin wherever she would lead.

 

Downing his drink, Collins laid his bills on the bar, receiving an apologetic smirk from Niylah, before heading out the door. 

 

***

 

_1910_

 

Bounding up and down the green velvet of the main staircase, Lexa brandishes a small wooden sword, chasing an invisible enemy.

‘I will vanquish you, Mordred! You shall never take Camelot!’ 

‘Lexa, please, no running on the stairs. I’ve told you a thousand times.’ 

Becca watched as her unruly ten-year old came to a sudden stop, looking sullen and defeated. 

‘Sorry.’ 

‘If you fall, you could hurt yourself. You have to be more careful.’

‘I know.’

Becca gave her daughter an encouraging smile.

‘What am I going to do with you?’

Lexa stood stiff and tilted her head to one side, then the other. 

‘Perhaps I can be of service, Mother?’

Becca’s fond expression did not waver as she reached in her pocket and placed something cold and round just between the girl’s brows. 

‘There, now you can play Alie.’

‘Most logical, Mother, thank you.’

Unable to resist the glowing cheeks and gentle green eyes, Becca reached for her daughter and kissed her forehead with a fierce tenderness. 

‘You’re my girl, aren’t you?’

Her ‘clockwork’ daughter’s expression did not shift.

‘Always, mother. I love you.’

The innocence shining out of her child’s face made Becca’s heart contract uncomfortably. 

_It ends too soon._

‘I love you, too, sweetheart. No more running though, promise?’

A crooked smile and a slight shake of the head answered her.

She couldn’t help her own as the promise was broken not a moment later. 

 

***

Clarke’s flat was coloured in soft greens and blues, shades of a harbour town. A low sofa of red velvet, covered in satin cloth pillows, sat beneath a window overlooking the pier. Framed cubist sketches and delicate paintings of feminine limbs and angles and curves decorated the walls. Behind a purple cloth partition, a large bed, unmade. Floor lamps with beaded shades gave the room a warm, if slightly dim, glow, casting shadows along the ceiling. 

‘Can I fix you a drink, Woods?’

The detective nodded as the singer pulled glasses and bottles from a bookshelf largely devoid of books, clearly better utilised as a bar. She wandered to a small desk where lay several unopened letters and unread newspapers. A small framed photo of the singer and another young woman with dark hair pulled into a ponytail caught her attention.

‘Is this Reyes?’

Clarke turned from the bar with their drinks and passed one to Lexa.

‘Yeah, that was taken about a year ago. We’d gone to DC to do a little dice, a little ice, you know? Didn’t end well. We both came home without a penny and half the clothes we left with.’ 

The detective smirked at the thought and took a sip of her drink. 

_Whisky. Top shelf._

‘You like to gamble, Miss Griffin?’

Clarke sauntered over to the bed and sat at one end, pulling off her heels. 

‘Do we have to be so formal, detective? You can call me Clarke. And yes, I like to place a bet once in awhile.’

Lexa made a slow circle of the flat before seating herself on the sofa.

‘Okay, Clarke…maybe you can tell me about the last time you saw Raven.’

Clarke’s eyes flashed brightly at the sound of her name, the softness of each rendered consonant, and she took a strong pull from her glass. Rising from the bed, barefoot now, she went to the desk, lifting the photo.

‘The night before she disappeared. We’d been discussing the story she was working on, about this old article she’d found, from before the war, about this scientist, Pramheda? The one responsible for the Clockwork atrocities – those ‘Iceworks’ or whatever they called them…she’d found this scientist’s work had been partially funded by Dante Wallace, Mr. Mt. Weather himself.’ 

‘That’s not exactly news. What else did she find?’

‘She’d been looking for means to connect Mt. Weather with Nia Frost – the Ice Queen? Raven started linking up the connection: she thought Pramheda’s designs were probably stolen by Frost, and that there was something she had made that Frost wanted pretty badly. Probably to put together her ‘superior race.’ Raven told me she met with someone from Mt. Weather who was willing to talk, she was going to meet him the morning she disappeared.’

‘Did she mention a name, who she was going to talk to?’

‘No, she didn’t know, or maybe he gave her a phony name, I don’t know.’

Lexa stood from the sofa and circled around the flat, her eyes wandering the shadows. 

‘If she’d found something that they didn’t want anyone to know about, all they would have to do is kill her, easy enough. But there’s no body – so far. This implies, if they do have her, that they have a use for her. Any idea what that might be?’

Clarke watched the other woman in her pacing, as she got closer, until they were almost toe-to-toe. The detective was close enough now that Clarke could see the faded (or was it removed?) military insignia over the right breast, the faint imprint of CMDR WOODS over the left. 

‘Maybe they think she knows more than she does or can connect them with – I don’t know. If they have her, they could be doing anything to her, right now, torturing her.’

The detective set her glass down on the desk and reached for the singer’s hand, squeezing it, gently.

‘I can’t promise you anything, but I will do my best to find your friend and bring her back. If Reyes had solid evidence of a connection between Frost and Mt. Weather, that would connect her to the President, and if there’s some proof that Frost was behind the Iceworks as well – that’s more than just a story.’ 

They held one another’s stare a moment or two longer than was absolutely necessary – until Clarke reached up, running her fingers along the faded letters of Lexa’s coat.

‘You were in the war, weren’t you – Commander?’

Lexa nods, swallowing the memories and taking a step away from the other woman, from the allure of her scent, and the smoky eclipse of her eyes. 

‘I was, yes.’

Nodding and taking the hint to ask no further, Clarke reached for one of the newspapers on the desk, handing it to the detective.

‘This was one of her first articles, about the use of human-like automatons in dangerous industries, like mining. Raven thought they were likely being used elsewhere, too, where they might not be detected, but used in…other capacities.’ 

Lexa took up the paper and glanced through it, noting the photograph of the mining drones, how easily they seemed to fit in. 

‘I remember this. I’ve seen one or two. They make people nervous. A little too-lifelike, they say.’ 

Clarke turned away, back toward her bed and picked up the red satin robe lying on it. When Lexa looked up from the paper, Clarke was before her again, with her back turned. 

‘Do you mind, detective?’

It took Lexa a moment to realise what was being asked of her, and her breath hitched before she slowly reached for the zipper of the dress and pulled it down, gently. She wanted to run her fingers down the smooth contours of Clarke’s bare back, examine each notch of her spine, every mole or freckle, drag her lips across her shoulders - 

As the singer began to remove her dress, Lexa turned away, trying to focus her attention on the artwork in the room. 

‘Have you lived here a long time?’

‘All my life, I think. My mother has owned this place since before I was born. It was her dream.’

A tinny melody began to infuse the room and Lexa turned to its source, Clarke, now in her red bed gown, turning the crank of an upright record player. 

‘I don’t remember my father – she never talks about him. I don’t really know what happened, she didn’t really turn to drink until after the war.’

Lexa indicated a patch on the ceiling.

‘You were bombed?’

Clarke nodded, turning the slim album cover over in her hands before setting it down on the bed.

‘I don’t remember much about it, just being terrified, running out into the street and there was so much smoke and noise and my mother was trapped inside. Someone got her out, a soldier. That’s when our old neighbours arrived, took us to a shelter.’ 

Lexa gave a small prayer of thanks for the music, grateful for any noise to drown out the sound of her heart beating, too fast, too hard. 

‘I’m sure that soldier would have been glad to know you were saved.’

Clarke smiled at her, something a little daring in her eyes, a little amused. 

The singer nodded, touching the pendant around her neck.

‘I would have liked to thank her, but I never knew who she was.’ 

It was Lexa’s turn to nod, hoping her face wasn’t too flushed, hoping the dim light of the room wouldn’t make it so obvious. Her eyes fixed on the pendant in Clarke’s hand. 

‘Is that something of your mother’s?’

Clarke held up the tiny pocket watch, flipping the lid open, and Lexa could see what was inside. Her heart felt like it would explode.

‘This? No, this was my father’s. It’s all I have of him, really.’ 

Her heart hammering, the walls felt too close and Lexa could feel beads of perspiration forming on the back of her neck, making it itch. 

‘Well, thank you for the hospitality, Miss Griffin – it is getting late. I should like to get started tomorrow, lots to look into.’ 

‘Of course, I’ll show you out.’ 

Lexa held up her hand and turned toward the stairs.

‘No, that’s all right. I’m sure I can find my way.’ 

Clarke raised an eyebrow.

‘I should hope so, _detective._ ’

Lexa did her best to smile, lost for a moment, and then remembered she was leaving.

‘As soon as I learn anything, I’ll be sure to contact you.’

Clarke caught up with her, leaning against the door to her room, blocking access to the stairs. 

‘I look forward to hearing from you…and maybe we’ll get to know one another a little better in the process.’ 

Reaching up to the former soldier’s lapels, the singer pulled Lexa forward, just enough to place a gentle kiss against the side of her mouth. 

‘Thank you, detective.’ 

Stunned, Lexa nodded as Clarke moved away, allowing her to leave. She drifted down the stairs with the old melody tripping through her brain, completely unaware when she finally reached the door to the bar and stood outside. 

She sniffed the cold air, noticed the twinkle of landing lights above, the soft hum of an aero taxi, the murmur of water against the pier. 

_Clarke Griffin never fell off a cloud. She fell from the stars._

Turning up her collar, the detective strolled off into the night, her mind whirring with possibilities and fantasies, leaving her completely oblivious to the handsome young man watching her from the shadows. 

Rolling a toothpick between his teeth, Finn Collins watched until he could no longer see, until the light in the upper window went dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since I've received a few asks on this - the next update will be at the end of April or early May (depending on my schedule).


	5. Convergence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the long wait. I hope a long chapter makes up for it. Thanks again for reading and all the lovely comments.
> 
> In which we learn what happened to Raven, Bellamy Blake joins Mt. Weather, Lincoln makes a gruesome discovery, someone thought lost reappears and Clarke and Lexa pine for the inevitable. 
> 
> ***Feedback is welcome and gives me an idea if this story should be continued.***

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 'I'm Confessing that I Love You' - music/lyrics by Chris Smith.
> 
> Tom Stoppard fans might enjoy this chapter. Chaoticians might enjoy it, too.
> 
> A companion to this story, Memento Mori, gives us a prequel aboard a sky train where little happens beyond a terrorist attack and something like smut (Clarke and Lexa - clueless soulmates).  
> You can read it here: http://archiveofourown.org/works/11664897

**

‘Why am I alive?’

Ignored, again, Raven Reyes could only watch the goings-on from her place, strapped tightly against a narrow bed in what, she assumed, must be some sort of medical facility. 

Illuminated by greenish, artificial lighting, the facility had no windows and only one obvious means of entering - a tall, heavily bolted door with no signage. 

The brassworks in the ceiling looked old and worn, the walls were covered in piping and narrow vacuum tubes likely intended for the conveying of messages. There were at least twenty other beds, most of them surrounded by linen curtains, obscuring what might be behind them. What she could not see, however, she could hear: muffled moans and whimpers that sounded entirely human.

Working dutifully around these curtains were stiff-legged Clockworks, their innards partially exposed, clothed in black rubber aprons and gloves. Some of them carried blood-soaked sheets or metallic instruments Raven could not identify. 

The reporter had never experienced terror before. She tried to concentrate on herself, slowing her heart rate, keeping her breathing as steady as possible. It would do no good to panic, not without first testing the possibility of escape. 

She pulled at her bonds, thick leather straps wound about each wrist, locked into the bed frame. They were new looking, strong and unlikely to stretch or tear. Thin as her wrists were, she could not pull her hands free of them, either. No instruments lay nearby that might be of use. Her fingertips were almost numb from lack of circulation. 

_This is_ not _how Raven Reyes bites it,_ she promised herself. _I am too awesome to peg out in a place like this._

A woman’s voice brought her attention forward.

 

‘The human equation has been missing something for a long time. It’s easy to see what it is – our compassionate nature, our need for love and acceptance – they make us weak. They hold back what could be the most perfect machine. Imagine a soldier in the midst of battle. He might not fire. He might not do his duty. He might look upon the wounded enemy and lay down his weapon, try to help. The cause is lost because he _hesitates._ We are missing something, Miss Reyes.’

 

Raven stared at the new arrival, unsurprised, anxious to gain some control.

‘I’ve read you. You think a superior race can be achieved through genetic manipulation and technology, selective breeding and _genocide_. Most of us think you’re missing something, too.’ 

 

A smile.

Nia Frost stood, tall and imposing at the end of her bed. Raven had seen her before, in photographs, but never up close. She could only feel the cold, aching chill of a fate unforeseen – at the hands of a mad woman there might not be any reasoning with.

Ignoring Raven’s comments, the older woman gestured to the Clockworks moving around her. 

 

‘It’s easy to look at them, these unsophisticated automatons, and wonder what might be so perfect about them. They’re not, of course, because they lack what it means to be _us._ It has been my goal to correct the human deficit with more…Clockwork efficiencies.’

 

Moving closer to Raven’s side, Frost’s expression softened and she placed a cold but steady hand against Raven’s forehead, brushing at a stray lock. 

 

‘You asked a good question, Miss Reyes. Why are you alive? I feel your anxiety about it. It isn’t easy to face a moment of crisis, a moment of change, and know exactly how to respond.’ 

 

Raven watched, her horror growing, as Nia turned from the bed and motioned toward one of the curtains. A Clockwork proceeded slowly toward them.

 

‘You are alive Miss Reyes because I know I can help you. Help you defeat these deficits that clutter your thinking and leave you with emotions no one should have to struggle with. You are alive, because you will help me with my work and together, we will see a New Age for humankind, a more perfect world, if you will.’

 

As the Clockwork neared, Raven could see it carried what, in her near-panicked state, she could only imagine was some kind of saw or cutting tool. She pulled at her bonds, but to no avail. The Clockwork stopped by her bed and she ceased her struggles. 

The being before her was different from any Clockwork she had ever seen: Its features were not the hardened plasticine of other automatons. Its ‘skin’ looked remarkably flesh-like. Its face looked like a human man, save the brass plugs around his skull. Tubes ran from his neck into his chest-area, partially exposed with Clockwork-like fittings. Raven felt her panic return as she saw what the fittings surrounded: a pumping human heart. 

Words were left hanging from her lips, dry and cracked from lack of moisture. Nothing would form.

 

Nia gestured at her ‘creation.’

‘Don’t be alarmed. I’m not going to muck up as I did with 247 here. I plan on taking my time with you, Raven. We’re going to make you _flawless._ ’

 

‘How kind of you. Never knew I had any flaws.’

 

Reaching toward her, Nia unclasped a chain around Raven’s neck and looked it over. 

‘Oh you have plenty of flaws, Miss Reyes. Charming – also sentimental. We’ll do better. I promise.’ 

 

Sweat formed on Raven’s brow as she shook her head, struggling for composure.

 

“Wow. Who knew you were such a talker. Maybe we should do an interview, instead. You can monologue for an hour and I’ll type it up.’

 

Nia patted her leg and turned to _247_.

 

‘Brave, aren’t you? Now. Where shall we begin?’

 

**

Reclining against the pillows of her bed, Clarke hums along with the record player as she sketches. 

_I’m confessing that I love you_  
Tell me do you love me too?  
I’m confessing that I need you  
Honest I do  
I need you every moment. 

 

The detective had left not an hour before, but she still felt the added warmth of the room and the tender taste of the other woman’s skin. A too-brief moment that left her full of want, reminding her of the empty spaces she could not fill anymore - not alone, at least. 

_In your eyes I read such strange things_  
But your lips deny they're true  
Will your answer really change things?  
Making me blue 

The sketch bothers her a little. She can’t explain to herself what she sees, what she means. The face, familiar, already missed, yet peculiar – why does she see a Clockwork face and not _hers?_

_I'm afraid, someday you'll leave me_  
Saying can we still be friends?  
If you go, you know you'll grieve me  
All in life, on you depends 

A knock at the door disturbs her reverie. Niylah looks stressed and she knows why.

‘I need you, Clarke. She’s not budging.’ 

Clarke nods and puts down her drawing, pulling her bed gown tightly round her, following Niylah down the stairs.

Her mother is slumped over the corner table, lumps of sugar scattered to the floor and the bottle of absinthe empty.

‘I swear I cut the bottle, Clarke. I just don’t know anymore.’

Clarke sits down beside her mother, running a hand over her sleeping form, gripping her shoulders and pulling her backward, cradling the older woman in her arms.

‘I don’t think it’s just the absinthe, Ni. I think she might have been given something…more .’

Niylah shakes her head, disagreeing.

‘When? She never leaves here and I’d know if one of those monks came in. They’re not exactly subtle.’

Clarke shrugs, resigned. Her eyes gleam at the edges, but no tears are allowed to fall.

‘I don’t know. She’s been gone so long. Guess I should get a second opinion, huh?’ 

With one hand, she brushes sugar from her mother’s cheeks and motions to Niylah. The other woman reaches around the table for Abigail Griffin’s legs and together they lift her and carry her toward the stairs. 

Pausing in the half-light of the bar, Clarke is momentarily stunned by the rarely heard sound of her mother’s voice, humming, quietly, with the music.

_Am I guessing that you love me?_  
Dreaming dreams of you in vain?  
I'm confessing that I love you  
Over and over again. 

 

**

 

 

_1914_

 

The girl’s voice is still unnerving to him. 

 

Titus Woods listens intently as his charge rambles on to herself, as she does almost daily. She never speaks about _before_ and Titus is unclear if she truly remembers anything. She never asks about her mother or what happened, and keeps whatever _it_ does to herself. 

He wants to feel resentful at being saddled with a troubled and possibly brain-damaged child; wants to hate Becca for not preparing more carefully, for knowingly putting herself in the Ice Queen’s hands. He wants to hate her for leaving so much unexplained and left behind – so many things that he cannot protect. 

_She’s like a Clockwork version of herself._

 

‘The bunker was cold, old and cold and dark like the first moment the light goes out, when your eyes haven’t adjusted yet and there was a lake beneath, just as cold, just as old, just as dark. They lived there, hidden, frightened, waiting for the end as if the end were an enemy, as if endings should never happen.’

 

He watches her pacing the house, arms clasped tightly behind her, narrating her visions or dreams or whatever is churning through whatever remains of her mind to no one. 

 

‘She’s there, this girl and there’s a woman and a man and a boy and they’re waiting in the dark. They’re waiting and she’s worried about the woman, the woman with the scar inside and the woman in pieces and the woman in the sky, falling.’ 

 

‘What is it, Lexa? What are you talking about?’

 

The girl stops, suddenly, turning to look at the worried expression of her caretaker. 

 

‘What?’

 

Titus notices how her eyes never seem to focus on him, always just to one side of him, as if she is seeing something he cannot. She nods to the empty space, as if answering someone else’s question. He doesn’t believe in ghosts, but he knows better than to believe they are not haunted. 

 

‘You were going on about a girl, in a bunker? What was that?’

 

Lexa scratches the back of her neck, too long for a simple itch. More like digging. Titus wonders if she can feel _it,_ if she _knows._

 

‘I don’t remember saying anything.’ 

 

Again, her eyes focus off his side and Titus’ shoulders clench with the worry of not knowing what it is to worry _about._

 

‘Perhaps you were daydreaming and didn’t realise. I will ask you, again, please try to be aware of your…surroundings. We don’t want anymore accidents, do we?’

 

Her hand drops and she looks up at him, her eyes so sharply gazing into his; he almost steps away in shock.

 

‘You shouldn’t worry, Titus. The last time I fall you won’t be there to see it.’ 

‘The _last time,_ Lexa? What do you mean?’

 

She resumes digging at the back of her neck and shrugs.

 

‘I don’t know.’ 

 

Titus goes to her, unsure if he should offer some sort of comfort, if she even needs comforting. 

_I can’t be her mother or father. I don’t know what I’m doing._

 

‘Why don’t you go work on your lessons for a bit while I prepare dinner?’

‘I’ve already finished the calculus. It was boring. I’m working on that proof for Fermat’s Last Theorem you set me. I’m running out of margins, though.’ 

‘I thought you were writing about chaotic behaviour in discrete systems?’ 

‘I got tired of plotting the points of a leaf on a graph. Everything feels like déjà vu all over again.’ 

 

Titus frowns, his thoughts churning with every sort of uncertainty as the girl turns and walks away, back straight, her voice traipsing along the walls, only curving back to answer itself. 

 

**

 

The walls of Lexa's room are plastered with newspaper cutouts about the War, the early beginnings of Clockwork engineering, hand-drawn diagrams of recursive spirals pointed on mathematical graphs, sketches of leaves and clouds and mountains, strings of numbers, algebraic functions and, in the centre of it all, one framed photo of a death notice. 

 

REBECCA ALEXANDRA PRAMHEDA  
1865 – 1912  
Noted Clockwork Pioneer Dies in Deadly Plunge Following Devastating Blaze  
_Possible suicide after only daughter’s untimely death_

 

‘You measured out your life with a slide rule and an Erlenmeyer Flask. Why did you never tell anyone?’

 

The woman who wasn’t there gave her the saddest of smiles.

 

‘My life wasn’t for others to understand or puzzle out. My work was.’ 

‘You let it burn.’

‘Only the parts that didn’t matter.’

‘You left me.’ 

‘No, sweetheart, I never left you.’

 

She goes to lie on her small bed and closes her eyes to wish her mother away, banish her to the back of her brain, where she cannot read her thoughts or see what she sees. There are more days now when, she decides, she cannot bear it. 

She wants to dream of the girl again, the one with the yellow hair. 

 

_‘I might bring Clarke up here one of these days. I told you about her? She’ll be four, soon. She’s a little general, that one. I think you’d like her. She’d take good care of you.’_

 

‘If there is a pattern in chaos, then there is an inevitable end to it. If we could just hold still, long enough, we could see it. We could know what will happen.’ 

 

Her eyes flutter as she searches for the face she wants to see, more than anything, the woman she wants to know, wants to understand. She has seen bluebells in the Cloud Gardens. Her eyes could not be more like. 

 

_‘Don’t we deserve better than that?’_

 

Her eyes flutter again and they are in a forest, or a tent, a cave, perhaps. She has touched her face, felt their lips press, such a gentle hopelessness. She seeks more, just a little more, closer, learn the shape of her, but it is too soon and the war is waiting outside.

For the longest moment all she is aware of, the sound of gears grinding in the back of her mind, and then –

 

Sun, blinding through the slats over the window. 

 

_1932_

 

Morning reaches through the blinds to caress her face and she wishes for another moment, just one more, to linger where she has been, safe, and so close to complete. 

_Not yet._

It isn’t fair. 

 

Indra walks in, a mug in hand. 

 

‘Thought you could use a little hair of the dog.’ 

 

Lexa accepts the offering, sniffs it, grimaces, and then swallows the contents in one go. 

 

‘Bad dreams?’

 

Shaking her head, Lexa rises and frowns at her rumpled clothes.

 

‘I never dream, you know that.’ 

 

‘You’re never up this early, either. What gives? No, let me guess. The Blonde.’

 

Lexa cannot help but smile at Indra’s familiar sneer. She means well. 

 

‘We’re on the case, old pal. Back in our old territory, too.’

 

Indra’s withering stare does not falter.

 

‘Mt. Weather, you mean? And here I never thought I’d feel joy again.’ 

 

Lexa rummages through the drawers of her desk for a new shirt, tossing the slept-in versions on her chair. 

 

‘How many missing persons cases have there been in the last month?’

 

Indra tosses a tie to the other woman and shrugs.

 

‘I don’t know. Too many. No clues, no ransoms, no bodies.’ 

 

Turning sharply, adjusting her tie, Lexa nods.

 

‘Interesting, isn’t it? No. Bodies.’ 

 

‘Well, with missing persons issues, the _bodies_ tend to get put to use elsewhere. Slavery still exists, Commander. I don’t need to remind you, do I?’ 

‘If Mt. Weather is involved, we’re dealing with more than slavery. One of those missing bodies is a reporter named Raven Reyes. She’s a friend of the blonde. She was working on a story that might have helped expose some serious connections. She was a threat, she was taken.’ 

Pulling on her leather coat, Lexa ushers Indra and herself to the door.

 

‘You don’t think they’d keep her alive?’ 

 

‘I don’t know, Indra. But where there’s no body, there might be hope.’

 

**

 

‘Heya, big brother.’

 

Bellamy Blake answers the door of his flat dressed in his crisp, new uniform. A creamy white and khaki ensemble that, to Octavia’s eyes, makes him resemble a milkman. 

But she knows better. 

The words _Mt. Weather Security_ are stitched in fine print over one breast.

The new guard lets his police officer sister inside, but seems preoccupied with preparing for the day.

‘Sorry, sis, I’m due at work in half an hour. I really don’t have any time to chat.’ 

 

Octavia glances around the small, poorly lit room as the older Blake dashes to his bathroom. She can hear the sink running and knows he must be brushing his teeth. 

There is little furniture in the space, just an old sofa and two rickety looking bookshelves. Octavia knows the volumes, having gifted a few herself: _Bullfinch’s Mythology. Lives of the Romans. The Iliad. The Odyssey._

‘I just wanted to wish you well on your first day. I hope you do good.’

 

She can hear the water shut off and Bellamy emerges, comb in hand, trying to work over an unruly mop of dark curls.

‘I appreciate it, O, really. This is a big second chance for me. I can’t blow it.’

Octavia nods and turns to the sole window with a view of the cannery and the fishermen unloading their wares from long carts onto conveyer belts and open bins. She can smell it all from here. 

 

‘Hey, did I mention the new case? We’re looking for that reporter, Raven Reyes, remember her? I think you two went to school together.’

 

Bellamy pauses, laying his comb down on a small table and reaching for his cap, adjusting it carefully on his head.

 

‘Yeah, I remember her, O. We were pretty close, once.’

 

She can hear the restraint in his voice. _Guilt?_

 

‘I’m, uh, sorry to hear she’s missing. I hope you guys find her.’ 

 

Octavia paces the room, slowly making her way back to the door. She pauses, noting the sweat forming on her brother’s brow. 

 

‘Yeah, we got a lead or two we’re following up on. Hoping to find some more, of course. It’s pretty thin out there. Really hoping for a break soon. Would be good to know she’s alive.’

There is something in her tone that Bellamy recognises. 

_She’s fishing._

Shrugging and reaching for the door, Bellamy pulls on a smile that never reaches his eyes.

 

‘Yeah, well, I hope something comes up. You’re good at your job, O. You’ll get her.’ 

_Need to work on subtlety, though._

 

He opens the door and Octavia nods, adjusting her uniform jacket, walking through to the filth-laden corridor, before stopping again.

 

‘You need to come to dinner sometime, Bell. You still haven’t met Lincoln. He’s anxious to get your _approval.’_

 

‘I plan on it, I do. We’ll set a date. Take care, O. Be safe.’ 

 

He watches as she waves before heading down the creaking flight of stairs. Wiping the sweat from his brow, he gives himself a mental slap before following. 

 

_Don’t fuck this up, Blake. Don’t._

_If you do, she’s dead too._

 

**

 

Sgt. Lincoln Vasquez watches the Unity Days banners being put up over the street from his perch in the coffee depot. Kids with streamers and rattles bound up and down the sidewalks, excited for the coming festivities. 

The officer reads from a flyer set beside his menu:

 

UNITY DAYS ARE HERE AGAIN!  
Celebrate with Music, Food and Fireworks Over the Waterfront!  
Dozens of Vendors! Activities for the Kids!  
Parade starts at Noon!  
Watch the President’s Speech LIVE in the Square!  
Pipe Band and Military Tattoo Finale!

 

Pushing aside the flyer, he finishes his coffee, checking the clock on the wall – the start of his beat – before giving a wave to the owner and heading out the door, pausing only to adjust the sit of his uniform in a window. 

 

The skies are gray over Polis, but the Cloudscapes shimmer with polished brasses over the brick and iron-wrought palaces, sky taxis ferrying to and from, connecting the Cloud Gardens and the newly rebuilt Skyrail. Not all the Cloudscapes glimmer, of course. The Eastern station still smoulders and the Pramheda quarters, while mostly intact, remain off limits. 

Though he had once received offers to run security in the Clouds, he takes a deep breath, reminding himself he is glad to have chosen solid ground. The air is too thin up there, he thinks. The people too…removed. 

 

From the corner of his eye, he catches sight of a frail, sickly looking man, lurching toward the Old Cemetery. From the haunted expression and the desperate clutch of his hands, Lincoln discerns a _chipped._

 

_Looking for his monk, probably._

 

Deciding to follow, Lincoln keeps a casual distance, pretending to watch the Clockwork decoration committees raising banners and flags. 

 

The _chipped_ , perhaps sensing his tracker, tries to hurry, and turns a sharp corner past the wrought-iron fence with its fleur-de-lis finials, into the cemetery, disappearing behind a dilapidated crypt. 

Lincoln creeps warily into the yard with his hand on his club and the other reaching for the torch on his belt. 

 

A strong stench of rotten flesh overpowers his senses as he approaches the crypt, suddenly overwhelmed by flies; there is a chattering noise that he does not recognise. Raising his torch into the dark, he enters. 

 

Bodies. 

Hundreds. 

The corpses are rotted, skeletal, unclothed, piled without dignity upon one another. Lincoln immediately corrects himself as he notices the mutilations, the missing limbs and, no doubt, missing organs. The smell is so foul he raises a hand to cover his nostrils, eyes stinging. Strong as he is, as he considers himself to be, he notices the small army of rats gnawing on the putrid remains and forces himself not to vomit. 

His torch lands on a shiny object amidst the horror and he reaches into his jacket for a handkerchief, plucking it up gently to look at more closely.

 

It is a pendant with a small blackbird dangling from it – a raven. 

 

**

 

Clarke emerges from the dim of the bar onto the busy side street of the harbour; she is immediately struck by the number of visitors arriving, converging toward the square as the Unity Day celebrations are due to begin.

She recalls the wartime scenes of burning and bombing, almost half the harbour side destroyed. The stately Doric columns and all the gloriously painted windows of the Trinity Oracle Church shattered. The cavernous ruin of the Institute of Incoherent Geography, devastated by the strange Clockwork juggernauts and their infamous ‘frost whips’ (a named coined by the media and later controversially co-opted by Mister Scoop’s Ice Creamery) and her own school, The Melies Academy, blasted to rubble, never to be rebuilt. 

 

And the bodies. 

So many bodies. 

 

Prone, blistered, bloated from melting ice. Small faces she knew, so many she didn’t. 

 

Now the streets are filled again with smiling faces, happier faces, faces that have forgotten or never knew. 

Some faces that don’t fool her in the slightest. 

 

The human-like Clockworks raising banners and pitching tents are dressed in anyone’s Sunday best, looking dapper and even a little dream-like as they move with well-timed efficiency to greet the growing crowds. She’s never bothered with them, can hardly stand her own kind sometimes, if she’s honest, but a part of her can’t help but feel a kind of pity for them. 

_Another slave race we’ve built. Bully for us._

 

‘I do declare this must be my lucky day.’

 

Clarke turns at the sound of the young man’s voice, not terribly surprised to see him there. 

 

‘It’s Finn, right? Is this your day job? Stalking unwary chanteuses?’ 

 

The handsome young man gives her a rakish smile, pushing his fists into his trouser pockets. 

 

‘Call it a weakness.’ 

 

**

 

‘Fuck’s sake, Lincoln, how did you find this?’

 

Indra and Lexa hold kerchiefs to their faces as a barrage of officers create a barricade around the Old Cemetery. Their grim expressions say it all: this is hardly an auspicious start to the Unity Days celebration. 

 

The tall officer’s face is set into a long stare – he cannot look away from the rotting horror inside the crypt. 

‘I was following a chipped, he looked bad – then I caught the smell. I’ve never seen anything like. Not even during the war.’

 

The trio is silent as forensic detectives set up their gear and demand space. This might be the longest day of their lives. 

 

Lexa holds up the small pendant, frowning. 

 

‘It doesn’t mean she’s in there.’

 

Indra shrugs. ‘Might be days before we find out. They left a lot of pieces.’

 

Lexa steps back, observing the growing number of officers on the scene. She turns back to Lincoln, whose eyes keep drifting closed. 

 

‘Is this normal? All the extras, I mean? What about security for the President?’ 

 

Lincoln nods. ‘There’s hundreds of bodies in there, Commander and we’re already gaining an audience,’ he points to the wandering crowds, curious over the new barricades. ‘We could have a panic. Besides, the President has plenty of…private security.’ 

Lexa doesn’t miss Lincoln’s sneer and her worry grows. 

‘You say it was a chipped that led you this way? What happened to him?’

 

Lincoln shrugs his broad shoulders, uncertain. 

 

‘Once I saw this, he was pretty much forgotten.’

‘Do you think it’s possible he was leading you here?’

 

This gives Lincoln pause, but he shakes his head. 

 

‘I couldn’t say. I guess it is odd he went this way and disappeared.’ 

 

Indra narrows her eyes at the detective.

 

‘You think all of this is planned? All these bodies dumped, right here, to be found, this day?’ 

 

Lexa shrugs. From the corner of her eye she sees the echo of herself nodding back and – something more. 

 

‘Is that him?’

 

Leaning against a stump, a haggard looking chipped is blissed out and barely conscious. 

Lincoln follows her gesture, but shakes his head.

 

‘No. But they’re always hanging around the cemetery.’ 

‘Good hiding place for a monk.’

 

Lincoln notices the sneer, but ignores it. 

‘I’ll have him detained. We’ll be talking to everyone around here.’

A grizzled older officer with a salty beard approaches the three with a sour expression.

 

‘Sergeant, clear this place, no civilians – Christ, Woods, you again. Why am I not surprised? You got a lead on this?’

 

‘Nice to see you too, Captain Kane. I’ll guess Raven Reyes had a lead on this – it would be nice to find her.’

 

Clutching the pendant in one hand, the detective gives Lincoln a meaningful glance.

 

 _I’ll give it back._

 

The senior officer nods in agreement.

 

‘It would. I hope it isn’t in this mess. Sorry, Woods, but if you’re no help, I need you to move on. I’m sure we’ll be in touch.’

 

‘We will. Thanks, Linc.’

 

Walking out of the cemetery, neither Lexa nor Indra notice the haggard chipped on his stump suddenly come to life, turning his head to watch them vanish into the crowds. 

 

**

 

‘You ever seen the President, live, I mean?’

 

The handsome Finn is fractionally less annoying in the daylight, and Clarke decides the company isn’t too bad – though she’s itching for a different companion. 

‘Actually, I have. He used to teach at my school. I was friends with his son.’ 

 

The pair makes their way along Main Street toward the Square, and the number of dark-suited security – and the distinct lack of police - surprise Clarke.

 

‘I figured this place would be crawling with cops, taking care of the crowds. Weird.’

 

Finn seems less surprised, just shrugs.

 

‘It’s a celebration of peace, Miss Griffin. I don’t think anyone is expecting trouble. Do you?’ 

 

‘It’s just standard form for securing the president, isn’t it? I don’t know. Maybe you’re right.’

 

Clarke knows he isn’t, but has no wish to engage with the handsome bore any further. She’s on the lookout now. 

 

‘You say you were friends with his son? The one who was murdered? Didn’t they find his body hanging – 

 

Clarke turns to the man with a stern and somewhat shocked expression. 

 

‘Yes, I did say that. No, that was not an invitation to discuss it.’

 

Finn looks contrite and raises his hands in a peace gesture.

 

‘I’m so sorry, that was out of line. I didn’t mean anything by it. I’m not the greatest with conversation, I guess. I think I get a little tongue-tied around you.’ 

 

He offers her a shy half-smile, doing his best to convey the expression of a smitten admirer. 

Clarke offers a weak, apologetic smile of her own, unhappy to have gone off on the young man.

 

‘I’m sorry too. It’s been years. I shouldn’t be so upset now. Should probably get some more sleep, too.’ 

‘I know the feeling. Some nights I still hear the bombs going off. Nothing really helps, you know?’ 

 

Clarke looks at him, as he runs a hand through his shaggy locks, looking for all the world like a lost soul without a home. 

 

_How am I always a sucker for these types?_

 

**

 

‘I can never understand the need some people have to be part of a crowd.’

 

Indra’s near-permanent frown only deepens as they enter the square, shoulder-to-shoulder with more strangers than she could count. 

 

‘Looks like everyone took the day off.’

 

Indra rolls her eyes at her boss, who has found a seat on a post box.

 

‘It’s a national holiday, Lex. Everyone gets the day off.’

 

Lexa shakes her head and gestures to the private security officers surrounding the main stage and its entrances. 

‘They don’t. The Clockworks don’t. The police don’t. We don’t.’ 

 

‘Oh, so am I getting paid time and a half for this gig?’ 

Lexa smiles at Indra’s sarcasm, a longtime companion she could hardly do without anymore. 

 

‘What _are_ we doing here, anyway? You really want to hear Jaha’s speech? Any bets the Wallaces wrote it for him?’ 

 

When she does not respond, Indra follows the direction of Lexa’s now-fixed gaze: a familiar blonde on the outside of the square – with a rather good-looking piece of arm candy beside her. 

 

‘Why am I not surprised?’

 

Indra notes Lexa’s vexed expression and slaps her gently against the arm until she has her boss’ attention. 

 

‘Listen up, Commander. You know her kind. There’s gonna be a boy – or a girl – in every port and no one knows better than you that _love is weakness._ You want to get the job done, keep it professional.’

Lexa’s face has turned bright red, but before she can respond, Indra raises a finger in warning.

 

‘I know what you’re going to say. Don’t. You’ve got us wandering back into the minefield, Commander. We need to focus or we’ll wind up like…you know what happens. That’s all I’m saying.’

 

Lexa nods, her head dropping, as she slips down from her perch. 

 

‘You’ve got some not-so-good news for her. Go tell her. Then let’s get back to work.’ 

 

Lexa looks up to find Clarke again, as Indra’s voice fades and another one takes its place.

 

_‘She needs to know what you know, Alexandra. You need to show her._

_Yes, mother._

 

The detective takes slow steps away from Indra, off the sidewalk, past the milling crowds. She has only one thing in focus – and it is walking toward her, too. Alone.

 

In the middle of the square, Clarke gives her a gentle but anxious smile.

 

‘I was hoping to see you around, detective. Have you got any news for me?’ 

 

Taking a deep breath, Lexa pulls something from her pocket and reaches for one of Clarke’s hands, placing it tenderly within. 

Without looking down at what it is, Clarke swallows, hard, a confounding emotion churning up her throat. She can feel the points of it, the slender chain twined about her fingers. Before she can speak, Lexa squeezes her hand gently and pulls her closer, enough to whisper. 

 

‘There’s something I need to show you. I need to take you somewhere. Will you let me?’

 

Clarke nods, mute, and allows herself to be led away from the square, watched from a distance by Indra on one side and Finn Collins on the other. Neither moves to follow. 

 

‘Where are we going?’ 

 

Lexa wraps a protective arm around the blonde’s shoulders and continues to lead her in the direction of a large sign reading SKY FERRY.

 

‘My home.’

Clarke gazes at the other woman’s tense profile and feels her heart race with the hope of a future realised – or a past about to be reclaimed.

Somewhere between the two, she knows, she’ll read it from the detective’s lips.

 

**

 

‘How’s your first day been so far?’

 

Bellamy Blake follows his new boss toward the other man’s office. 

 

‘It’s been excellent, Mr. Emerson – and I just wanted to thank you again for this opportunity.’ 

 

Emerson waves him off and gestures to the various work crews hauling large open crates, some filled with fine art paintings, some with statuary. 

‘We run an elite operation here, Blake. We have clients who demand the best, expect the finest and, let’s face it, are probably the worst humans on the planet. But they’ve got fat wallets and that’s all that matters, right?’

 

Bellamy attempts a laugh that is swallowed up by the cavernous insides of the actual mountain, hollowed out and now used as protective storage for – anything, as far as he knows. 

 

‘Will I be shadowing the art couriers today, Mr. Emerson?’

 

Emerson stops, mid-stride; looking confused for a moment, he shakes his head and beats a path toward a tall brass door.

 

‘No. No, I think I’ve got a better job for you right now. All discretion expected, of course.’

 

Emerson’s tone is not to be misjudged as they approach a storage area that has no visible signage or windows - just a simple door. 

 

‘You’ll be assigned to this team until further notice. Keep anyone without platinum security clearance out of it and cooperate with those inside if they need you.’

 

‘What team is this, sir?’

 

Emerson’s smile leaves the new guard on edge.

 

‘This? It’s just for…upgrades, you might say. Later, Blake.’

 

Bellamy tries to wipe the sweat from his brow when Emerson suddenly turns toward him again and raises a hand.

 

‘Oh, and Blake? No more questions.’

 

Bellamy tries to swallow the lump in his throat as the head of Mt. Weather security disappears from his view. 

 

**

 

‘Vitals?’ 

 

The Clockwork ‘nurse’ reads from a clipboard off the end of the bed.

 

‘Good. No complications so far.’

 

‘Prosthetic?’

 

‘All connections are secure and appear to be functioning. The surgery went well. Would you like me to wake the patient?’

 

A tall brunette in a red overcoat approaches the bed to look more closely, her head turning only slightly from one side to the other. 

 

‘I believe we can let Miss Reyes sleep a while longer. We’ll need her well rested and recovered before the next procedure. Please keep me apprised of her progress.’

 

‘Yes, ma’am.’

 

The woman reaches up to gently touch the cog-like object embedded in her forehead. 

 

‘Sacrifices must be made in order to achieve perfection. A fact Miss. Reyes, will, no doubt, come to appreciate quite soon.’

 

Turning from the bed, the woman departs as the nurse re-covers the prosthetic leg that signifies the first _upgrade_ of Raven Reyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ao3 is still formatting hell.


End file.
